The Letter thumbnail 1
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F , Case X, Shelf 55, Box II

The Letter

Photograph
1843-1847 (photographed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This image is one of a series showing people from the Scottish fishing village of Newhaven. It was made by the renowned partnership of the painter David Octavius Hill and the chemist Robert Adamson.

Hill and Adamson used watercolour paper for both negatives and prints. Its fibres softened the image and enhanced the painterly effect. In this image, the clever use of light and shade and the careful positioning of the sitters' hands add to the composition.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Titles
  • The Letter (assigned by artist)
  • Marion Finlay, Mrs Margaret (Dryburgh) Lyall and Mrs Grace (Finlay) Ramsay (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Salted paper print from calotype negative
Brief description
Photograph by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, 'The Letter', Marion Finlay, Mrs Margaret Dryburgh Lyall, and Mrs Grace Finaly Ramsay, Newhaven, salted paper print from calotype negative, 1843-1847
Physical description
One of fifty sepia-coloured photographs in a boud album depicting three women gathering round to read a letter.
Dimensions
  • Height: 20.5cm
  • Width: 14.7cm
Style
Gallery label
This image is one of a series showing people from the Scottish fishing village of Newhaven. It was made by the renowned partnership of the painter David Octavius Hill and the chemist Robert Adamson. Hill and Adamson used watercolour paper for both negatives and prints. Its fibres softened the image and enhanced the painterly effect. In this image, the clever use of light and shade and the careful positioning of the sitters' hands add to the composition.
Credit line
Given by Sir Theodore Martin, 1869
Historical context
The famous partnership and collaboration between the artist David Octavius Hill and the photographer Robert Adamson came into being originally in order to produce photographic portraits to assist Hill as a painter. The team produced a wide range of superb, valuable work and they were the first consistently and successfully employ calotype process in Great Britain.

1843 Hill was introduced to Adamson and they began to collaborate on the production of calotype portraits as reference images for the painting ‘The Signing of the Deed of Demission’ which represents 474 dignitaries. Essentially, Hill posed and arranged the individual sitters or groups while Adamson attended to the technical aspects of the exposure, processing, and printing.

Some of their most powerful images, however, were made in Scottish seashore villages and depict fishermen and women. They also photographed the architecture and monument of Scotland and made calotypes of their friends posed in medieval armour or costumes.
Subject depicted
Place depicted
Summary
This image is one of a series showing people from the Scottish fishing village of Newhaven. It was made by the renowned partnership of the painter David Octavius Hill and the chemist Robert Adamson.

Hill and Adamson used watercolour paper for both negatives and prints. Its fibres softened the image and enhanced the painterly effect. In this image, the clever use of light and shade and the careful positioning of the sitters' hands add to the composition.
Bibliographic reference
Stevenson, Sara. 'David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson: Catalogue of their Calotypes Taken Between 1843 and 1847 in the Collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery', (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 1981). ISBN 0903148374
Other number
pg. 198 (NEWHAVEN 36)
Collection
Accession number
67394

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Record createdOctober 9, 2006
Record URL
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